By IANS
Chandigarh : Back-channel mediators began softening the ground Thursday as the religious and political row between Sikh groups and the Dera Sacha Sauda continued to simmer in Punjab.
Informal moves are on to broker a peace between the two sides ahead of the May 27 deadline passed by the Akal Takht – the highest temporal seat of Sikhism – and some other Sikh organisations for the ouster of the sect from Punjab.
Sikh groups want an apology from the chief of the Dera (campus) who, they say, hurt Sikh religious feelings by impersonating the 10th Sikh guru, Gobind Singh.
A multi-faith delegation that held parleys with the sect chief – Gurmit Ram Rahim – and his close associates over the last two days, Thursday said that they were waiting for the sect to come up with a concrete offer.
Social activist Swami Agnivesh, who led the delegation to the sect's headquarters at Sirsa, Haryana, said he was waiting for the sect to come out with its offer to defuse the tension with the Sikh community.
A sect spokesman indicated that a solution could be worked out by Friday. "We are trying to ensure that new demands are not made once our new offer comes," he added. Sect sources said that an "apology" to the Sikh community could be made by the Dera chief if no fresh conditions were put on the sect.
Akal Takht chief Joginder Singh Vedanti merely said that the initiative for an apology to the Sikhs has to come from the sect.
Meanwhile, Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal, who held a meeting with ruling Akali Dal legislators, MPs and senior party leaders here, expressed the hope that a solution would be found before May 27.
"My government is fully committed to maintain law and order in the state," Badal said when asked if the Dera campuses and followers would be safe in Punjab after May 27.
The Akali Dal legislators and leaders were asked to ensure that peace prevailed in their respective areas.
He said that it was up to the sect chief to deal with the situation and take steps to defuse it.
However, the radical Sikh organisation Damdami Taksal Thursday said that nothing short of the arrest of the sect chief was acceptable to it. "An apology alone will not do. We will throw the Dera out of Punjab," Mokham Singh of the Taksal said.